


Doing It Properly

by The_Lake_King



Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lake_King/pseuds/The_Lake_King
Summary: Prompt 2. "Take my hand." "Why?" "Because I'm trying to ask you to marry me, take my bloody hand!"Jimmy is being very, very serious.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137182
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40
Collections: Well I love you: Valentines for Thomas Barrow





	Doing It Properly

The haze of whiskey and cigarette smoke seeped through Thomas like sunlight. It was so very new; being allowed to float in the shallows of the evening, half dressed atop the blankets. A warm weight sat on his chest, purring softly as his fingers dragged through strands of golden silk. He had a feeling that even if they had a bed big enough for a king, Jimmy would still wrap around him like a punchy little octopus at every opportunity. He did his level best to summon irritation at the thought, but none was forthcoming.

Jimmy peered up at him owlishly. “You’re thinkin’ about me,” he slurred. “’S too loud.”

“Pardon me, your highness.”

His lover thumped his arm without much conviction. “Stay, just like that,” he muttered, holding up his hands in a semblance of a picture frame. Jimmy leaned back, one eye squeezed shut, until he slipped off the bed into a pile on the floor. “Whoops,” he said, deadpan, peering around until he had the lay of the land enough to rise to his knees.

Thomas giggled. Which he would never admit to having done come morning. “You alright down there?” He tried to lever Jimmy up under the armpits, but the inebriate was having none of it. Thomas surrendered and sat back on the bed with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re beautiful,” Jimmy announced from the ground. “An’ brilliant. An’ I love ya. Don’t say it enough, ’cause I’m a plonker, but I do.”

“I…I love you too, Jimmy.” Thomas tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. He treasured moments of unrestrained affection from his lover all the more for their rarity. There was still something in him that believed it was all made of bits of candy floss and coloured chalk, that any moment the rain would come and wash it away. Jimmy would find a girl. Thomas would wake to the hallboy banging on his door. Or worse, to the bugle call. So he collected these little moments, hoarded them in his memory like a dragon. “Now how about you get off the floor and we go to bed properly, eh?”

“Shh. Take m’ hand,” Jimmy slurred, looking up at him from under his unruly hair. He flopped his hand down on Thomas’ thigh, palm-up.

“Why?” Thomas asked, amused.

“Because I’m tryin’ to ask you to marry me, take my bloody hand!”

Thomas suddenly felt uncomfortably sober. He slipped his hand into Jimmy’s, who immediately started massaging the scarred palm almost absentmindedly. 

“Good. So. Right.” Jimmy blinked. He opened his mouth and shut it again.

“Jimmy, you’re drunk.” Drunk and daft and having one of those mad flights of fancy. For it was fancy, and ridiculous to boot, but God ,Thomas wanted to indulge it. He petted back that impossibly soft hair. “I think it’s bedtime.” Best not to go down this road.

“No, no no no Thomas, I had words, I just…shite. Can’t remember ’em.”

“You planned to ask me to marry you?” His voice was shaking, much as he tried to take it in stride.

Jimmy nodded, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. He slapped his pockets until he found a small velvet box. “See? Got rings for it.”

The box held two wedding bands. One was broad and squared off, the other slim and rounded. “Jimmy…”

“I got different ones so they wouldn’t look related. I…What’s the matter?”

Thomas bit his lip to choke off the sob that threatened to escape. “You want to marry me. _You_ want to marry _me._ ”

“I wanted to do…somethin’. ’Cause I know you want all that. Like normal people do. And we can’t. But anyone can buy a ring and say they wanna be with each other, and we sort of are anyway, so…do you?”

“Yes,” Thomas whispered. 

“Me too.” Jimmy grinned. He pulled the slimmer band out with almost comical concentration and guided it onto Thomas’ ruined finger. It would be hidden by his glove. The thought of walking around, going about his work and his life with a promise against his skin made his chest clench. “Is it alright?” Jimmy asked, face scrunching up in exaggerated concern. Thomas shivered as blunt fingertips traced the edges of his scars.

“It’s perfect,” he whispered.

“Should fit,” Jimmy murmured. “Under your glove, like.”

“I know.”

“Can’t exactly wear mine, but at least you can.”

“Wait here a minute.” Thomas stood and pulled open his miscellany drawer, sifting through his collections of watch parts and dubious postcards for a little wooden box that contained what he sought. Jimmy smiled up at him when he presented a slim golden chain. “It belonged to me mother,” he said as he slid the ring on and clasped it about Jimmy’s neck. “It’s not quite the same, but it’s something.”

“’S perfect,” Jimmy said softly. Without any warning he yanked Thomas down to the floor, ostensibly for a kiss. It ended in both of them splayed at a strange angle, disheveled and most likely bruised. 

“You’re a lunatic.” Thomas rubbed his bumped elbow and did his best to scowl.

“Oi, don’t talk to your husband like that.”

Thomas opened his mouth and shut it again.

He hid the tears in his eyes by busying himself with getting them both into their pyjamas. Jimmy sat through it like a small child, fiddling with his ring and reaching out to touch Thomas’ at every opportunity. Thomas tried not to look, or to feel too acutely the new weight on his hand. Because if he acknowledged it fully, allowed himself to understand that Jimmy had planned this, that it wasn’t some drunken lark, he might lose his mind. It was only when the light was off and his sweet, idiot boy lay curled in his arms that the full absurdity of it hit. He didn’t weep. He laughed.

“I can’t believe you asked me to marry you while you were stumblin’ drunk.”

“Needed t’ be brave,” Jimmy murmured. “Sober me’s a coward.”

Thomas squeezed him. “Oi,” he whispered into his hair, “don’t talk about my husband like that.”


End file.
